Rape, beef, and gau rakshaks: A ground report from Mewat

After reports of murder and rape over allegations of beef eating at Mewat in Haryana, Newsclick visited the site to do a ground report. They met the Bar Council of Nuh, who claim that the police and the administration have destroyed important evidence related to the murder and rape. Several reports have already shown that business for biryani vendors have taken a hit as Mewat celebrated a quiet Eid. One of the vendors we interviewed said that he generally earned 20,000 on the eve of Eid, but this time, he could not even cross a mere 2,000. In its preliminary investigation, the Bar Council claims that those accused of the murder and rape, as well as the intimidation of biryani vendors, are connected with the RSS. Mewat has been a target of Hindu Right-wing organisations, as this 2013 report of the Hindu Janajagriti Samiti shows. That the gau rakshaks are nurtured by the state police and administration has also been widely reported. All these, in fact, appear to be part of a design to intimidate those from the minority community. The design has been put into practice on a different scale since the BJP government came to power in 2013. The ground report clearly shows that the state machinery is being used to harass Indian citizens.